


Meaningful

by idrilhadhafang



Series: Sequel Trilogy Missing Scenes [35]
Category: Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren (Comics)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Missing Scene, Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren (Comics) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:26:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29919621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: What was going through Ben’s head when he picked the name Kylo?
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Ben Solo, Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron/Kylo Ren
Series: Sequel Trilogy Missing Scenes [35]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931056
Kudos: 2
Collections: The Darkpilot Library





	Meaningful

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Something Went Click
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

“Who will you become?”  
  
In a way, Ben didn’t have to answer Snoke’s question out loud. Because he already knew who he wanted to be.   
  
It was an answer that he had thought of when he was a youngling.   
  
***  
  
 _Ben didn’t know when he started hating his birth name, but plain and simply, he did. There was something about it that, when he heard about Obi-Wan Kenobi, he knew he could never live up to. Obi-Wan was a war hero, had died fighting Darth Vader and saving Ben’s uncle.  
  
A general. A legend.   
  
How could Ben even begin to live up to that?  
  
He envied Poe, at times. Poe didn’t have any expectations attached to his name. Poe didn’t have anyone to please, anything to prove. He was just Poe. He could do anything he wanted.   
  
All they want from you is your legacy, the Voice whispered, deep in his mind. All they want from you is what you can do for them, how you can make them proud. They would never love you simply for you.  
  
Ben wanted to deny it. Of course he did. He didn’t want to think that his whole family, as well as his friends (including Poe. His best friend) just wanted to see what he would do for them. How he could please them. But what if they did? What if they just didn’t love him for him, but because they were obligated to, because he was useful to them?  
  
He shuddered to think.   
  
Kylo was a protection from that, he thought. Kylo was a protection from the idea of being exploited. From being used. Here, with Kylo, he could forge his own identity. _  
  
***  
  
 _Introducing Poe to the concept of Ben’s alter-ego, Kylo, was freedom in its own right as they played under the Yavin sky. To say that he just wanted to play at being Kylo the Jedi or Kylo the pilot, and Poe was all right with it. Completely.  
  
“You know,” Poe said once, when they were sprawled out on the couch with the grown-ups talking, “Whether or not you’re Ben or Kylo, you’re still my best friend.”  
  
“ ‘Course we are.” How could Poe even say otherwise?  
  
Poe touched Ben’s shoulder. “Why the name Kylo?”  
  
“It’s just fun. Poe...you ever feel like you're being pressured to be someone you’re not?”  
  
“Do you?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Poe smiled at Ben. “You can just be Ben around me. I like you just as you are.”  
  
And there was something about it where, for a moment, Ben believed it. _  
  
***  
  
It fit him now. Even as Snoke scanned his mind, the sensation weird (was that how others felt around Ben?), Snoke managed to pick up a name, say it suited him — but Ben kept the truth close to his chest. Not a word, he thought, about how much that name had attached to it. It was something that was fitting for how much Poe meant to him, at least.  
  
Because he loved him. He tried to make excuses, saying that he’d come up with the name as a child, but he knew in the back of his mind that it was the last remnant of Poe he could take with him. Kylo. Such a small name for something that meant everything to him.


End file.
